of the choices we are given (there's no choice at all)
by swallowedsong
Summary: She left town twelve years ago, in the wake of disaster. She's back now, this time with a child and responsibilities, trying to reconcile her past and her son's need for roots. The last person she expected to see was him.


**disclaimer: own nothing**

_author's note: to make this one work, I switched around some backstory - Liam had an affair with Milah - and Gold had them both killet_

* * *

><p>Emma Swan drives back into her hometown driving the same beat up yellow bug she drove when she fled town twelve years ago. Only this time, she has a ten-year-old son sitting next to her. It looks the same, the sleepy town of Storybrooke, Maine, with its veneer of small-town charm and the harbor glistening in the background. Emma knows, though, that like most sleepy old towns there are secrets that lie buried beneath its ground.<p>

Or at least, that's how it feels for her, as she drives down the narrow streets until she pulls up to Mary Margaret's house, remembering the fire at her heels when she left town, the teenage wreckage of Killian Jones and Emma Swan. Blood feuds and old wounds, revenge and abandonment – those bad memories are the only things that she has allowed herself to hold on from Storybrooke. They reminded her of all past misdeeds and past wrongs – the reasons why she left, and the reasons why she stayed away for so long.

(Except she could never quite bring herself to hate _him. _Even if she should.)

But Henry needs some roots and Mary Margaret is the closest thing she has to family - the other woman's house being her final home before she turned eighteen and said _Fuck this place_.

Her son's eyes are closed and he is leaning against the window as she eases the car into a stop and shifts to park. His hair is flopping over his forehead. _Time for another haircut _and _he's growing so fast_ her common refrain these days. When her friend had called her about the opening in the sheriff's department, she knew what the other woman was really saying.

_It's time to come home, Emma._

**.**

She dreams of Killian that night, while Henry is tucked into the bed in spare room and she curls her body onto the couch with a blanket and pillow. She had lain awake for hours, convincing herself that she's made the right move, that she can make the switch from bail bonds to deputy. That she can make a difference, make a _home._

She dreams of his eyes, vacant as he watched the pawnshop burn to the ground, the stiffness in his arm as she grabbed him, trying to pull him away from the building. Within the dream, she feels that same fear, knowing that if the sheriff arrived and found him standing there, he would be arrested. The entire town aware of the feud between Killian Jones and Mr. Gold, aware of both the affair and the suspicious deaths of Liam Jones and Milah Gold. The town aware that Killian Jones was one bad revenge plot away from prison.

(She had loved him anyway, with the certainty of a seventeen-year-old girl who knew the ugliness of life but still hoped for more. She's lost that girl over the years, but she wonders if perhaps coming back is her chance to find it again.)

Waking up, body shaking and sweating, she paces the living room, her feet moving swiftly across the plush carpet. She hears the faint sound of a baby crying and the quiet murmurs of David and Mary Margaret, trying to figure out which one of them will take the two a.m. feeding. She listened to them as she remained sill on the couch, eyes closed, willing her body back to sleep. Elusive sleep, her mind racing with memories.

He hadn't set the fire. It had been a random quirk of fate that they had come across the building, riding into town on the back of his motorcycle. The had spent the better part of the evening with their limbs entwined on a blanket, bodies half-clothes as he'd slid inside her and she'd ridden him to oblivion. As they rode, her arms wrapped tightly around him, they had come across the fire and he'd stopped short, the motion jolting her neck.

(She had watched the building burn with him - pleading for him to come with her, to go home, to _not_ get arrested, pleading with him days later, for him to leave town with her. To make a fresh start somewhere new where neither of them faced the weight of history.

Weeks later she left in the cover of night, boosting an old yellow bug from a side street, waiting for hours until she knew - as the sun bled through the clouds at dusk - that he was not going to choose her over revenge that day.)

**.**

She had understood, in the end, why he couldn't come with her, why he had to see things through. Even though she had pleaded with him the night before she left, telling him that he would honor his brother more by finding a path to happiness.

(She used to think of him, sometimes, late at night. She would think of remembered kisses, of mouths pressed together, and of bodies aligned. Of whispered promises made in the dark of night.)

And then Neal happened, so quickly afterwards. Any wreckage from Killian Jones was consumed by Neal - and his leaving - and then _Henry._

**.**

Emma finds herself waking at dawn. A cramped and crowded house - with three adults and two children - mean that morning routines are precious. _Begin as you mean to go on_, she thinks as she grumbles her way through a half-asleep shower. She drags Henry out of bed early, too, so they can get out of house before the rest of its inhabitants start moving about.

It's her first day of work and Henry's first day of school in his new home. "Breakfast at the diner?" She suggests to Henry, who shrugs.

(She knows that he's confused - with their rapid packing and moving halfway across the country.)

She grabs his hand and says, "Come on, kid. Let's go. It'll be our morning thing."

**.**

She had hoped - deep within, in all the secret corners of her heart - that he would have left town, and all reports said that he had. But it looks like he's returned, given his placement at the counter, the plate of half-eaten food pushed to his side as he scrawls into a leather-bound journal, his hair falling over his forehead in some places, sticking up in others.

(So familiar that she stops short to leave and her gut aches.

She shouldn't be staring hard enough to notice all of these things.

But she is.)

If it wasn't for Henry, she would have left. She would have turned on her heel and fled the diner. But his small hand was in hers and his voice, still so young, asked her, "Why are we stopping, mom?"

"We're not, kid," she says as she steels her back and starts walking again, making a beeline for the closest booth - and the location furthest away from where he sits at the counter.

She hopes that he hasn't seen her, but she knows, as soon as he shifts in his seat - just an inch or two - she will be directly in his line of sight.

He stops by their table when he leaves, his step faltering for only a moment when he notices Henry. His eyes bore into hers as he asks the questions - and she shakes her head, just enough. His eyes lighten and his tone is cheery as he greets her son with a lilting, "Mornin' lad," and a smile for her.

She introduces him to Henry as an old friend, the word catching in her throat, Emma praying that her son doesn't notice. (He's too perceptive, sometimes, this kid of hers.) Killian mentions that he's just passing through, with a shadow crossing his eyes. He notes Henry's backpack with a questioning eyebrow and she mentions that she's recently moved back to town and living at Mary Margaret and David's until they can find a place of their own.

"She never did like me much," he quips.

Her lips lift and she smiles at him, shaking her head, "No. She really did not."

**.**

When he excuses himself - and she looks at her own watch, rushing Henry out the door - she realizes that there is only one reason for him to be back.

(October 1st.)

**.**

It's the end of her shift and she's still in uniform when she visits the graveyard where his brother is buried. Since Mary Margaret teaches at Henry's school, she's offered to bring him home until the end of her shift, for which Emma is forever grateful. Especially today, as she knows that she will find him here. Ever since she saw him that morning at the diner, she could not help but replay their sad history.

If she's ever going to put down these roots she thinks about, constantly there days, she needs to face _him _and _this_ past.

He is standing in front of the grave, _Liam Jones - brother_, inscribed into the stone. His shoulders curve downwards and his head is bent. She approaches softly, though he must hear her anyway, because he turns quickly, body snapping to attention, with the quiet crackling of the autumn leaves on the ground.

"I thought you might be here," She says softly.

"Aye." His reply is short, but his eyes aren't angry.

She stands next to him and reaches out her hand. It's so natural that she doesn't even know that she's done so until she feels his fingers twine with hers..

"So, you're back in town." He nods in her direction.

"Yeah," she replies. "I thought it was best if Henry had a real place to grow up. You know?"

"It wasn't so bad here," he agrees. "Not in the beginning."

"Right." She pauses and takes a gulp of air. "Not in the beginning."

"Listen, about that night - " he starts, but she cuts him off.

"Not right now," she says. "Right now is about him," she continues, nodding at his brother's grave.

They are silent for a few moments, before he detaches his hand from hers and points towards the small gazebo in the clearing across the way. "So, you're with the law now?" He asks, taking note of her uniform.

"I know, it's a change, right?" She laughs. "I did bail bonds work in Chicago," she continues. "And there was an opening here in the sheriffs department."

"And you decided it was time to come back."

"And I decided it was time to come back." She pauses as they sit. "Gold's finally left town, you know. Just a few months ago."

The wry expression on his face tells her that he knows _precisely_ the moment when Gold left town, because it is precisely the same year that he decided it was safe to visit his brother's grave._  
><em>

"What have you been up to all these years, Killian?" She asks.

He's taken her hand again, cupping it between his, rubbing away the chill of the autumn air. The leaves have been turning for weeks now, and the air is crisp.

"Oh, this and that, love. It's a boring story."

"Not to me," she says, as she twines their fingers once more. "Tell me over a drink sometime. Next week?"

He releases her hand and scoots back on the bench, away from her. "I'm leaving again tomorrow."

"Are you?" She asks with the arch of a brow.

(She wonders if he feels it, too, that same old pull between them, that same spark along his skin that she feels. That same fullness in his heart, as if the pieces have clicked back into place just being near each other.)

"One drink," he agrees. "Tomorrow, eight o'clock."

**.**

In the end, he doesn't leave town.


End file.
